


Wild Hearts

by Tabithian



Series: Crooked Hearts [3]
Category: DCU, DCU (Animated), Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-26
Updated: 2016-01-26
Packaged: 2018-05-16 08:55:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5822389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabithian/pseuds/Tabithian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jason doesn't give in to the trap of falling back in with Bruce and his little brood, or joining up with the junior superheros up in Happy Harbor or wherever the hell they're calling home now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wild Hearts

**Author's Note:**

> Back when I wrote [Graceless Hearts](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4316157) I went looking [for this](http://tabithian.tumblr.com/post/42394318306/awesome-my-toddler-is-sleeping-tabithian-i-am),and then this just kind of sat in my WiP folder for months until I got the urge to clean it up a bit and tweak things. 
> 
> So.
> 
> (Kiragecko is totally to blame for this, yes. >:(((((((((((((((((( )

Jason doesn't give in to the trap of falling back in with Bruce and his little brood, or joining up with the junior superheros up in Happy Harbor or wherever the hell they're calling home now.

No.

He's got a sweet little setup in Gotham and eyes and ears in more places than even Bruce knows about.

Plus, with Bruce off-planet and Dick spreading himself thin to keep things together, it's easier to get lost, put his ear to the ground and pick up all kinds of interesting information here and there.

Sometimes he shares with the class, sometimes he plays his cards close to his chest. Either way he's got a sweet deal going working solo.

Taking care of problems Dick and the others don't have time to deal with, which.

When you get down to it, is a hell of a lot better than having to sort through the fallout of the Harper situation, watching Dick and the others fumbling that one.

Not for lack of trying, just.

Shit happens.

Replacement – Tim - tries to pick the ball up, keep things going, but Harper's this tangle of issues to go along with being an idiot with a love of things that go boom.

So it's no real surprise that when Jason actually meets Harper it's right after a row of warehouses on the docks go up in fairly impressive explosion.

Harper's admiring his handiwork with this little satisfied smirk on his face and his hands on his hips like something out of an old television show. The ones that were were supposedly based off the JSA that makes the rounds through the cape and cowl community like the worst kind of hazing as some kind of internal training videos.

Jason watches him for a moment, takes in the deadly lines of his prosthetic arm and wonders exactly what kind of firepower the kid has in it. 

“Nice work,” Jason says, peering over the edge of the building the idiot's preening on. “You realize they all got away, right?”

There are a couple of unmarked vans speeding away from the explosion, another making a lurching, creaking run for it down the back roads, tires shredded, engine straining.

Harper looks at him, this little flicker of recognition on his face before he's back to smirking, even more obnoxious than before. 

Cocky, arrogant.

“I've got it handled, thanks.”

Jason stares at this. This _kid_ , no bigger than Replacement, really, and balls the size of - 

“ _Arsenal_.”

Jason winces at the hiss in his ear from the comm unit he has set to monitor little Bats on their own with the others out of town. (Jason's not invested in the little brat, okay? It'd just look bad if someone wearing his old colors went down to some two-bit thug.)

Sharp, angry, and a moment later Tim swings in from the side, slamming into Harper and sending them both tumbling.

“What is wrong with you?” Replacement snaps, coming in on top, hands fisted in the front of Harper's hoodie. “Seriously, what is wrong with you?”

Jason watches the two of them with this growing sense of amusement as Tim tears into Harper for a list of infractions even Bruce would blink at. 

Because Harper? 

He just takes it, this little smile on his face as Tim goes red in the face listing off all the ways Harper is a menace and, _”Oh, God Batman is going to kill us so dead if Nightwing doesn't get to us first, you jerk._ ”

“You take care of the trackers?” Harper asks, when Tim stops his little Bruce-inspired tirade to breathe.

He's still smiling, like Tim bringing the Wrath of God down on him is hilarious.

Tim blinks, sitting up a little. 

“What?”

Harper untangles Tim's hands from the hoodie he's wearing over his suit and grins, like he knows what the answer's going to be. 

“I asked if you took care of the trackers.”

Tim tips his head to the side, look on his face like he's wondering if Harper managed to hit his head on something.

“Of course I did.”

Harper grins, sitting up and reaching over to ruffle Tim's hair like he's so much older than him.

And, okay. 

That's a tricky little minefield right there, so.

Also, Jason has to wonder if Dick and the others see what's going on between these two morons, or if Bruce's obliviousness is just that contagious.

“This is sweet and everything,” Jason says, points down to where first responders are starting to arrive. “But you two lovebirds might want to move this somewhere you won't be seen. Just saying.”

Tim freezes, slowly turning his head to look at Jason.

There's this look on his face, hell if Jason can figure it out.

Dismay, sure. Slow-dawning horror's in there too. Something else, though, that's got Harper snickering at him.

“Hood?”

Jason smiles, shows some teeth, because he has a reputation to keep up.

“Yeah, kid. Mind telling me what the hell the two of you are doing on my turf?”

Tim frowns, opens his mouth to say something and closes it a moment later. He turns to Harper and glares.

“Ask Arsenal, he came to me for help.”

Harper shoves at Tim, who shoves back, like they're both toddlers instead of highly trained junior superheroes, and Jason.

Christ, he can feel a headache coming on because these brats, okay. 

These _brats_.

********

“Okay, let's try this again,” Jason says, pointing at the questionable couch squatting in the middle of the room in one of his admittedly sketchier safe-houses. “Replacement goes first.”

Harper's head snaps up at that, scowl on his face.

Jason cocks his head, daring the little bastard to say something.

Harper though, rolls his eyes and flops back onto the couch and gives Jason this sullen teenager look Jason's more than a little familiar with.

Tim stops his nervous pacing to give Harper a look, worried, before glancing at Jason.

“I really don't know all the details,” he says, look on his face like he's expecting to get lectured about that, eyes dropping away from Jason's. “Arsenal said he needed help.”

There's this odd kind of silence after he trails off. Harper darting a look at the kid, then scowling at Jason. Like he's waiting for Jason to lay into the kid, and really?

Jason _should_ , because Gotham.

Not the kind of place you want to fuck around with when it comes to scumbags and worse if you don't have a plan of some kind in mind.

But when it comes down to it, it's not like Jason adheres to that handy little guideline all the time himself, but he's kind of crazy. 

People like him get a free pass on that shit.

“That so,” Jason drawls.

Harper makes a face, like he thinks Jason's an ass, and leans forward.

“Look, Robin didn't know I was going to set off the explosives, okay? If you're going to yell at anyone it might as well be the right person.” Harper pauses, looking Jason up and down like he's sizing Jason up. “Not like you care anyway, right? Didn't you try to kill him?”

Out of the corner of his eye Jason can see Tim shaking his head and waving his hands at Harper because the kid is clearly an idiot.

Both of them, really.

Jason sighs.

“Harper, if I'd actually been trying to kill the little shit – and trust me when I say this - he'd be dead.”

Harper stares at him, eyes narrowing.

Whether it's due to Jason knowing who he is, or that little tidbit, Jason doesn't know.

Doesn't know, doesn't care.

He turns to see Tim with his face in his hands like he can't believe this is his life.

“You said something about trackers?” Jason asks, holds a hand out. “Gimme.”

Tim doesn't bother to look up as he hands over a little device about the size of a smart phone. A map of Gotham is on the screen along with four points of light almost right one top of one another, blinking slowly.

Jason gives Tim a look, and he winces.

Not Bat-tech, which means Tim had to know things were going to go off-plan in a way that would bring Bat-disappointment down on the two of them right off the bat, so to speak.

Smart little shit.

“Looks like got where they were going,” Jason says, sliding a look at Harper. “You have a plan?”

Harper's focus slides from the device to Jason, head cocked to the side.

“What do you care?”

Jason smiles.

“Because, Harper,” he says, lets a bit of a growl come through. “You two idiots fucked up a month of work.”

Month-and-a-half, with the prep-work that came with it because Jason wanted to shut these fuckers down hard, and now.

Well.

Things aren't completely fucked, but it's going to be messy dealing with them now they're on the alert.

Jason's actually a little surprised Harper picked up on them at all. A bunch of lowlifes peddling drugs and guns and all kinds of fun stuff. 

Not what the League usually sends the junior superheroes after, but.

Seeing the look on Harper's face, that's probably the point. 

Tim winces, edging closer to Harper like he really thinks Jason's going to take it out of that idiot's stupid, stubborn hide.

Maybe once he'd have given serious thought to it, sure, but.

Christ, it's like the longer Jason's been out of the Pit, the clearer he sees things.

Looks at Harper, this idiot kid who's gotten kicked around by life big time and just keeps coming back for more.

Looks at _Tim_ , this weird kid who made himself Robin in a way Dick, Jason, didn't, _couldn't_. A kid who did that and acts like he thinks he's just some temporary fill-in. Like he hasn't earned to the right to be Robin.

Jason calling him Replacement probably isn't helping, but Christ. The kid's a better Robin than he was any day of the week. 

“You want to see this through to the end, Harper, you do it our way,” Jason says.

Harper looks up at him, so damn suspicious, but Tim relaxes a little. Stops looking like he's thinking of ways to take - well, try and take – Jason down to get Harper and himself out of here in one piece.

Is, actually, looking a little like he thinks Jason's out of his mind.

(He's not wrong.)

********

Long story short, Jason gets to see the kind of firepower Harper's packing in that arm of his.

Fucking beautiful, really.

Especially when Dick shows up and starts reading them the Bat-riot act, and that little vein on his forehead starts to throb.

The only downside to the whole thing is that Harper seems to think they're buddies now, for some inexplicable reason. 

Won't stop showing up in Jason's territory to thin the scumbags out when he's bored, this cocky little grin on his face like he thinks Jason won't put a bullet in him.

After a while Tim starts skulking along behind Harper hoping to keep the property damage to a minimum, which really? 

Kind of adorable.

Stupid, but so goddamn adorable. 

********

Harper's watching Jason cleaning his guns, this little frown on his face.

Opens his mouth to say something, but Tim walks past. Phone to his ear and using this very specific tone he's developed to explain to Dick why another section of Gotham went up in flames.

Technically not Harper's fault this time, or even Jason's, but Dick's having a hard time accepting that because he's kind of a dick.

And sure, Jason was there when Harper let loose on some rather unfortunate gunrunners, but he didn't step in until the gunrunners started tossing grenades around willy nilly.

Besides, Jason doesn't see why Dick's so upset. The city's been talking about a rejuvenation project in that part of the Gotham for years. This could be a nudge in the right direction if they play their cards right.

They grin at Tim when he gives them dark looks and climbs out on the fire escape to continue the conversation, shutting the window after himself hard enough to rattle the glass.

“He seems angry,” Harper says.

Jason rolls his eyes because Harper's trying to sound like he doesn't give a shit, but really?

He does.

So much, because he has all these _feelings_ for Tim and no damn clue what to do with them.

Like hell Jason's going to get in the middle of that. Not when it means having to deal with Bruce in full-on Batdad mode whenever he gets back from space jail or whatever the hell is going on there.

“You're supposed to be on a covert operations team, Harper. Blowing the shit out of things every chance you get isn't very covert.”

God, the fact that _Jason's_ the one telling him that, though.

Harper snorts, setting his arm on Jason's table and starts disassembling it to do some maintenance on it, like it's a thing they do.

Blow shit up and come back to one of Jason's sketchy little safe-houses and clean their weapons together while Tim does damage control. 

“Pot, Kettle,” Harper says, corner of his mouth kicking up in this infuriatingly smug smirk. “Nice to meet you.”

_Christ._

********

It's not all fun and games and burning parts of Gotham to the ground, no.

Tim and Harper run off to that little junior superheroes club of theirs with Dick and get the shit beat out of them.

Get taken prisoner, get hunted down on some death-moon-thing. (The urge to call it a Death Star is so goddamned strong, it hurts.)

Come back to Gotham looking defeated, little bit broken, because hey, they saved the day and all it cost was everything.

(Business as usual.)

********

“Hood.” 

Jason looks up from where he's keeping an eye on some kids playing a game of pickup basketball.

Bunch of neighborhood brats who give him the side-eye when he's down there without the helmet and mask. (To be fair, they do that when he does, too.)

“Harper.”

Harper makes a face because Jason only calls him by his junior superhero name when they're teaching lowlifes why it's a bad idea to set up shop in Jason's territory.

“Problem?”

Harper doesn't answer, just pulls up a patch of roof next to Jason and watches the kids for a moment.

Stupidly young, all of them, running around and having a grand old time like the world didn't almost end a few days ago.

And Jason.

Well, he's up on a roof with a jackass who didn't get the memo that the Red Hood isn't much for being a team player.

Because.

Harper looks over his shoulder to where Tim's lurking, and after a moment the kid steps into sight, Skirting around Jason and giving Harper this _look_.

Harper just gives him one right back, and good God, they're so damn clueless it's kind of embarrassing.

“Whatever it is, just spit it out already,” Jason snaps, not really in the mood to watch them being idiots at one another.

Tim huffs, giving _Jason_ a look, and Christ, when did the kid get so sassy with him?

“We found something,” Tim says, nudging Harper with his foot. “Well, Roy did.”

Jason decides the hell with it and goes along with this new trend of giving people _looks_ , and treats Tim to one.

“That's nice. I'm very happy for him,” Jason says, turning to give Harper a _look_ of his own so he won't feel left out. “Congratulations, Harper.”

Harper opens his mouth to speak, and closes it again, eyes narrowing. 

Tim fidgets, little twitch of his fingers nearly hidden by his cape, shifting his weight from one leg to the other.

“We found _someone_ ,” Harper says. “We think, anyway.”

Harper looks away, fiddles with that arm of his.

Working himself up to something, and Jason.

Jason knows where this is going.

Knows Bruce got his hands on some sensitive files certain parties would rather stay hidden, that he's got the family and some of the junior superheroes digging through them. (Jason may or may not have sent some of those files their way.)

All kinds of secrets the Light was keeping. (Secrets. People. The usual with them.)

“Batdad know you're here?” Jason asks, looking at Tim.

Tim rolls his eyes, this thing you get a hang for reading off people wearing masks. Or maybe it's just a Tim thing, who knows.

“Jason.”

And.

Fucking fine, Jason may not have given in to the trap of falling back in with Bruce and his little brood, or joining up with the junior superheros, but.

He's been keeping an eye on these two idiots when Dick and the others can't. Making sure they don't get in over their heads out here. (Stopping by the manor to see Alfred, because _Alfred._ )

Sending little bits of intel or whatever he's managed to scrounge up to Dick and the rest of the junior superheroes while Bruce was gone. Keeps sending shit their way now that Bruce is back again, working to dig up what he can on the Light and what they've been up to.

Gotten all _invested_.

Jason wonders if Bruce is laughing his little black heart out somewhere because this has to be some kind of cosmic payback for the shit Jason's put him through in the past.

“Christ, just.” Jason holds his hand out to Tim, who _smirks_ at him, the little shit. Like he knew Jason was going to cave. “Gimme.”

********

Her name is Koriand'r, but she likes the way Starfire sounds.


End file.
